Huddle CEO Alastair Mitchell's Secret Weapon: Naivete

Frustration can be a great motivator. Just ask Alastair Mitchell, the CEO and cofounder of Huddle, a set of tools for collaborating with teams of people spread across different geographies and in multiple languages. But building a better toolbox in the cloud is not enough to make a business successful these days. And, as Mitchell says in this installment of Innovation Agents, over the course of several years "we grew, ran out of money, raised money, grew, ran out of money, raised money..."

Perseverance like that requires a belief in what you are building. "I wanted to make something bigger than myself," says Mitchell, "and make something really great and exciting that would change the world." Huddle is now used by 90,000 companies worldwide, including Disney, P&G, and HTC.

One secret to Mitchell's success might surprise you: Naivete. "Being naive helps hugely," says Mitchell, 34. "You have to be naive, because if you knew what you were getting yourself into you probably would never do it."

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